MUSKEGON, MI – Muskegon County Commissioners last week moved to keep their committee and board meetings at 4 p.m. instead of 3:30 p.m.

The idea was to make the meetings more accessible to the public, or at least show the public that the county commission is open to more public participation.

Will the meeting time change make it easier for you to attend? Tell us what you think in the comment section and poll below.

Engaging the public in local government isn’t easy. We couldn’t help but notice that the story about the county changing its meeting times drew significantly less interest from readers than another story about a free junk collection day. The two stories were published about the same time and were both about Muskegon County, but it took a story about a place to drop off your junk for free to spark a conversation among readers.

The fact remains that the county commissioners – as well as local township boards and city councils – make real decisions affecting the taxes, parks, how the environment is cleaned up, government services and utilities. Sometimes decision-making is hard, but it helps when individuals, families and institutions to show up for meetings and give their input.

Finding the right time to hold meetings is hard, too. Some of us get off work at 3:30 p.m., some of us get off work at 7 p.m., and still others work second or third shift.

Not even all the county commissioners agreed on a later time for meetings. One of them, Marvin Engle, said he thought the 4 p.m. time was actually hurting public attendance.

Evening meetings might be accessible to more people who work a traditional 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. shift. That’s part of the reason MLive Muskegon Chronicle advocated for evening meetings in an editorial last year.